Busoga Trust's vision is to live in a world where everybody has access to affordable, clean, safe water.

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In rural Uganda, 64% of people have limited or zero access to a safe drinking water source. With more than 24% of handpumps broken in Uganda, we need a new approach to water provision, functionality and maintenance. ​ Focusing on sustainability, we not only construct water sources in communities that have never had access to safe water, we also rehabilitate broken water sources, and bring back clean water to communities that once had it.

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In 2020, we committed to rehabilitate all water sources built by all actors in our areas of operation and aim for 100% functionality.

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Providing people with clean water looks different in each community. Primarily we work with communities to install hand dug wells, but in some cases drilled boreholes, capped springs, or rainwater catchment tanks are more suitable. In 2020, we started a major borehole rehabilitation programme, completely renovating non-functional boreholes across five districts in Uganda, bringing back clean water to almost 136,000 people across 173 projects. As of 1st October 2022, we have now rehabilitated 900 boreholes across 9 districts benefitting over 450,000 people.

Our team select communities to work with based on needs assessments. Communities and engineers then decide where to locate their water source and are required to contribute towards the  work and ongoing maintenance. This engenders a sense of ownership and investment in ongoing maintenance.

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Communities elect their own Water User Committee, and we train this group in water source management, bookkeeping, and conflict resolution, and we ensure they have a reserve fund  to meet the costs of preventative maintenance. Through this we empower community members to manage local problems using local solutions. 

 

When we work in a community we are committed to the long term with each source added to our  rolling monitoring schedule. The greatest testament to this approach is that our very first source, constructed in 1984, is still pumping safe water 34 years later.